India’s ballooning under-trial population is a serious challenge to the effectiveness and legitimacy of the criminal justice system. The most recent, yet dated Prison Statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2018 pegs India’s under-trial prison population at around 67 % or two-thirds of the total prison population. Academic and policy literature on prisons and under-trial detention have conventionally focused on a doctrinal analysis of provisions on bail or on the conditions of detention, relying primarily on data from prisons and police stations, compiled by the NCRB. However, the crucial point of entry of a person into the prison system at first production in the courts after arrest has received no research attention.
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